Malaysia and Singapore have agreed to postpone the finalization of a long-negotiated rail agreement that has experienced delays since the inauguration of Malaysia's new government in 2018, Nikkei reports.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines throughout Asia are shifting from passenger to cargo flights and increasing exports from China, one of world's first economies to begin re-opening, to offset their losses, Nikkei reports.

Growing investment in satellite communications, especially in Asia, indicates that small satellites will increasingly be used in combination with 5G to meet demand for high speed connectivity, Nikkei reports.

In a new report, Singapore has been named the number one city in the world for artificial intelligence, based on infrastructure, innovation, and government awareness of potential social issues which stem from AI, Nikkei reports.

Southeast Asia is proving to be a hotbed for China's Belt and Road Initiative according to two new reports, with Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore, and Vietnam topping the list of countries with the most contracts and investment out of an estimated $11 billion in the region overall in the first half of 2019, Nikkei reports.

Transportation ministers from Malaysia and Singapore have signed a supplementary agreement deferring the four-kilometers, cross-border Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System (RTS) until September. The $1 billion rail link was originally aimed at reducing congestion at the countries' border, reports the Nikkei Asian Review.

As Singapore's population grows, the city-state's Urban Redevelopment Authority has announced a plan to expand its urban infrastructure underground. Singapore's geographic constraints demand creative thinking from its government about how to further build out its infrastructure, reports Nikkei.

Southeast Asia’s strategic importance for China, the United States, Japan, and others, and the advantages that will come with control over data flows, mean that the region’s decisions on digital infrastructure and internet governance will have implications that far transcend business outcomes.

Singapore and China on Thursday agreed to set up an international mediation panel to resolve disputes arising from projects under China's Belt and Road Initiative. The agreement was inked at the first China-Singapore International Commercial Dispute Resolution Conference in Beijing, attended by some 300 delegates.

Beijing is currently working on construction of a high-speed rail line in northern Thailand. Under its planned 3,000-km pan-Asian railway network, Chinese rail lines will extend even further south, stretching through Malaysia and feeding into Singapore, reports the Nikkei Asian Review.

Singapore's central bank announced the start of a new program that will provide Asian emerging nations banking and legal services for infrastructure projects like roads, harbors, airports, railroads, and power stations. This program aims to make the city-state a key player in contracts related to China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The U.S.'s recently announced plan to invest $113 million in infrastructure throughout the Indo-Pacific region will have a limited impact and pales in comparison to China's multi-billion dollar Belt and Road Initiative, according to Dr. James Crabtree of the National University of Singapore.

Chinese infrastructure investment throughout Southeast Asia has shifted the tide of opinion, simultaneously supporting authoritarian politics in certain states and engendering opposition to Belt and Road in others, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

Indonesia’s President, Joko Widodo, is pushing to turn the country into a fulcrum of maritime trade along China’s Belt and Road initiative with a $50.6 billion plan to build up the maritime sector, including the development of 24 "strategic ports."

Malaysia's decision to cancel the high-speed rail from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore suggests that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's new government may reevaluate other costly Chinese-led projects to cut the country's debt, Nikkei reports.

Prime Minister Mahathir cancelled a proposed high-speed railway project that would have connected Kuala Lumpur with Singapore on Monday, citing the overall cost of the project as a primary concern. Mahathir's predecessor signed a legally-binding deal with his counterpart, Lee Hsien Loong, in December 2016 as a symbol of closer bilateral cooperation which will now require negotiating a $125 million penalty for pulling out.

As Arctic sea ice steadily shrinks and temperatures rise, Russia and China compete for control of newly accessible natural resources and transportation routes while cooperating to finance the development of resource extraction and transportation infrastructure.

Singapore has signed an agreement with China to strengthen cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative, aiming to expand the city-state's involvement in massive infrastructure projects led by Chinese companies.

On Tuesday, Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to better leverage infrastructure and development opportunities provided by regional initiatives such as the Belt and Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

A consortium of European companies including the German Engineering company Siemens, France's Alstom, Austria's PORR, and Italian State Railways will team up with a Malaysian engineering company to bid for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail line. The consortium is expected to face rival bidders from both China and Japan.

Reconnecting Asia is tracking developments across a vast landmass that includes 60 percent of the global economy. Every day, new infrastructure projects are announced, some are advanced, and others encounter obstacles. Here is a selection of the top projects to watch in 2018.

The land acquisition process has started for the 350-kilometer-long high-speed rail linking Kuala Lumpur with Singapore, paving the way for the bidding process to begin by the end of the year. The infrastructure project is expected to attract international bidders for the first cross-border high-speed rail line in Southeast Asia.